Education may be a ticket to upward socioeconomic mobility for most college graduates, but Daniela Alulema’s bachelor’s degree in accounting hasn’t gotten her far. She says her status as an undocumented immigrant has forced her to put her career plans on hold.
For nearly a decade Congress has failed to pass a bill — the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — that would grant Alulema legal residence and free her from a life in the shadows. So Alulema, like other activists, is looking to her state for help. Administrators and faculty at New York schools and leaders at government agencies signed a petition that Alulema and other organizers put together, but to no avail.
“We saw last year that the federal government is unwilling to take any kind of step toward humane immigration reform,” says Alulema. “We decided that this time we’re going to take the battle to the state level.”
Thanks to New York’s in-state tuition law for undocumented students, Alulema was able to pay her way through the City University of New York, using her parents’ life savings and revenue from part-time jobs. “It was a tough ride, but I made it now,” says the 24-year-old, who currently works with the New York State Leadership Council, an organization that presses for access to higher education through grass-roots community organizing and leadership development.
Making it out of high school and into — and through — college puts Alulema in the distinct minority among undocumented immigrants. According to a March policy brief by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, only between 5 percent and 10 percent of the nation’s approximately 65,000 undocumented high schoolers go on to college.
“We’re here. We’re not going anywhere. We’re coming out in more numbers and stronger,” says Alulema.
The DREAM Act would grant legal status to undocumented immigrants under 30 years of age who were younger than 16 when they were brought to the country and who either enroll in college or join the armed forces. Now, Alulema is campaigning for a New York DREAM Act that would give her access to a driver’s license and health care, while allowing undocumented students to get financial aid and even giving some undocumented immigrants permission to work.
